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Pharaohs of Ancient Egypt > Rudamun RudamunRudamun was the final pharaoh of the Twenty-Third Dynasty of Ancient Egypt. His titulary simply reads as Usermaatre Setepenamun, Rudamun Meryamun, and excludes the Si-Ese or Netjer-Heqawaset epithets employed by his father and brother. He was the younger son of pharaoh Osorkon III, and the brother of pharaoh Takelot III. He is a poorly attested pharaoh of this Dynasty according to Kenneth Kitchen's seminal book on The Third Intermediate Period of Egypt. Kitchen credits him with a brief reign of about 2-3 years due to the few contemporary documents known for him. These include a small amount of decorative work done on the Temple of Osiris Heqadjet, several stone blocks from Medinet Habu, and a vase. In recent years, two fragments of a faience statuette bearing Rudamun's name from Hermopolis) have been discovered. This recent discovery suggests that Radamun managed to preserve the unity of his father's large kingdom in Upper Egypt ranging from at least Herakleopolis to Thebes during his reign. Some Egyptologists such as David Aston have argued that Rudamun is the anonymous Year 19 king attested at Wadi Gasus. However, recent archaeological discoveries favour Takelot III instead since a donation stela from Takelot III's Year 13 was discovered in February 2005 at Dakhla Oasis by an expedition from New York's Columbia University. Another alternative is that the Year 19 Wadi Gasus ruler was a certain Shoshenq VII, a new unknown ruler as proposed by G. Broekman in a paper based on Nile Level Text No.3 which is dated to Year 5 of a Theban king who ruled after pharaoh Osorkon III. However, there are serious doubts among scholars as to whether Nile Level Text No.3 contained the nomen Shoshenq rather than Takelot. Jean Legrain who had the first opportunity to survey the Karnak Quay Texts did not read any royal nomen in this inscription--from his 1898 publication of the Quay Texts--since the stone had already been badly eroded. The stone would have been in even worse shape when Von Beckerath inspected the document in 1953 and assumed the surviving traces on the Text No.3 referred to a king Shoshenq, rather than a Takelot. Soon after pharaoh Rudamun's death, his kingdom quickly fragmented into several minor city states under the control of various local kings such as Peftjaubast of Herakleopolis, Nimlot at Hermopolis, and Ini at Thebes. Peftjaubast married Irbastudjanefu, Rudamun's daughter, and was, therefore, Rudamun's son-in-law. Nothing is known about Rudamun's final burial place and the surviving contemporary information from his reign suggests that it was quite brief. |
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